


find the few living things

by angelatflightrisk



Category: DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, LMAO, M/M, Moded boyfriends, Moded! Blue Beetle, No fluff this is dark, Probably kinda scary, Probably stressful, Reach! Impulse, Villain boyfriends, dark shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-10-16 04:33:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10563792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelatflightrisk/pseuds/angelatflightrisk
Summary: Where Impulse comes to the past and rather than fixing it, gets put on his own kind of mode. Downhill from there.





	1. Initiation

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY  
> this is the start of a multi-chapter eek!! i'll try to keep it up as much as i can but if i'm, being totally honest, if there's not a lot of interest i probably won't, so make sure you're letting me know what you think!  
> I know this first chapter is super short, future chapters will be longer. promise

Silence, hanging heavy in the air. A break. Not one of mercy-- it’s just long enough so that the pure exhaustion in his bones can make itself known, the agony. Smoke rolling off of his skin. The smell of burning flesh. Cheeks tear-stained, breath coming in sobbing, broken gasps. Clawing hunger, vicious dehydration. His throat burning and raw and likely bleeding from all of the screaming he’s been doing all this time.

How long has it been? A day? Two? A week? More? The boy doesn’t know. Time has no business here, and even if it did the concept eludes him now, without his speed, with that inhibitor collar snapped to his neck.

A click, a switch. White hot pain shooting under his skin, under his flesh, setting his bones on fire. Electrocution. He screams, and he can’t even hear himself over the crackling, the burning, the shocks. He doesn’t stop screaming. He’s not sure if his eyes are open as the lightning devours him.

It wasn’t supposed to go this way, and even now the boy isn’t sure how it did. It wasn’t a simple thing, what he’d planned to do. It would never have been easy. But Christ-- it shouldn’t have gone so horrifically so quickly. Not the second he stepped into the past.

Electricity. Sparks. Lightning. Burning flesh. Burning. How long has it been?

He’d had it worked out, him and Nathaniel. Come back to the past. Crash the mode. Fix it. Fix it. Burning flesh. Screaming laced with desperate pleas. What do they want from him?

‘I will, Nathaniel’. That’s what he’d said. ‘Lots to do, better get to it.’

He arrived in the right time, but not the right place. Rather the very wrong place, the worst place possible. Directly in the heart of the Reach, in the infancy of its operation on Earth. The boy remembers emerging from the time machine, turning his eyes up, his face full of mirth and painted with a bright smile, because he did it, he did it.

He remembers the fear he felt. Cold, sharp, shooting through his veins when he met their eyes. Two aliens, definitely Reach. The ambassador, and another one-- a researcher? A scientist?

Both of the pair looked unimpressed, mildly annoyed, looking down at the boy with icy, stone gazes. Beside them, a Beetle. Black. Grinning a wicked grin, a sadistic grin, a grin that turned the small speedster’s blood to ice in his veins.

His screaming stops when the electrocution do. His lashes flutter over exhausted green eyes. For however long he’s been here, sleep has been threatening him steadily. Inevitable. Still, he’d tried to fight it. Fight it. Fix it. The pain is everywhere, absolute agony, his very skin on fire.

He’s been fighting this whole time, and still fighting. But he’s only human. He’s just a kid, a boy, a boy who’d grown up weak and underfed and miserable. And finally, without his consent, sleep takes him away. The beginning of the end, as they say.

 

The Reach ambassador watches, makes certain that the boy has really given out, that the small human is really and thoroughly broken before he turns to the scientist and tells her to open the pod.

The sight is pathetic. His arms are above his head, secured, completely limp. His dark auburn hair makes a curtain of sorts over his freckled face, curly and in a mess. He’s naked, littered in burns and scars from where they’d cut him up and open, healed quickly with his abilities before new ones were made. He’s been here a month

There is another timeline out there. One where it doesn’t happen like this. In that timeline, Bart Allen is born, grows to be fourteen in the Reach’s Earth, and travels back in time to make certain that the Reach never gains control of the Earth. It works. He’s Impulse, a superhero, a member of Young Justice, a perpetually cheerful, goofy boy who’s adored by the public. And by Blue Beetle, a member of his team.

Blue Beetle is of the Reach. The scarab on his spine ensures that. Impulse, however, ensures that he is not. Impulse, in all his meddlesome glory, arrives from a time he was never invited to, waves a hand and makes certain that Blue Beetle remains with humanity. And against the Reach. Together, in love, the two even manage to give the beetle AI a sort of sentience on it’s own, a moral code to match their own. All three of them, together, happy. Heroes.

The Reach, vanquished. All is well on the planet Earth.

Not in this timeline. The Reach is not known to be fair losers, good sports. They couldn’t allow Impulse, this fifteen year old boy with messy hair and freckles and a stupid smile to simply wave them off. It was unheard of, and it would not stand.

So, they’d set it all up to fall into their favor in another timeline. After all-- if the little hero could meddle with time, why shouldn’t they?

They warned this alternate Reach far down along the line, not to fix their own time, but to ensure that another time would have an ideal outcome. For the last laugh.

The idea this alternate Reach formulates is this: without Impulse, the Reach wins. So the answer is simple; make sure there isn’t any Impulse.

Of course, they can kill him. It would be easy. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if they could use him?

Putting humans, or anything, on mode has always been a matter of scarabs, or similar devices. AIs taking over for hosts. But Impulse’s fated arrival had striking potential-- If they were to develop a method of moding a human, a deep, integral moding… One that rewrote who they were, their memories, how their brain worked… It would be infinitely more effective. They could integrate it into their beetles, make better, more loyal, more trustworthy soldiers.

Impulse is the perfect candidate. Not only is it a good way to make sure he doesn’t go to waste, but there is no drawback. If it works, the Reach is all the stronger. If it doesn’t, they kill him, and the future becomes theirs anyway.

Perfect.

“Take him out of that,” The scientist told Black Beetle, “Make sure he heals, and make sure he doesn’t wake up until I’ve finished reprogramming him.”

“Make sure he knows to come find us when he wakes up, scientist,” The ambassador added, “And then we can start. Making sure it worked, of course, and then higher heights.  Impulse's initiation is in order, after all, if this goes as it should. Much to be done.”

“It’s an exciting time. To the Reach, ambassador.”


	2. Lightning

“Can anyone tell me the solution to the equation after plugging in the given values?”

It’s a normal day for Jaime Reyes. Average. Insignificant. He had an algebra test earlier in the day, a few chores when he gets home, needs to babysit his little sister while his parents are both off at something. He didn’t get much sleep the night before-- He was up, doing homework that he hadn’t had the chance to do in light of superheroing.

If being a teenager isn’t hard enough, being Blue Beetle doesn’t make it easier.

A girl raises her hand, says, “47.”

It’s a normal day for Jaime Reyes.

“Correct.”

It’s kind of cold outside, for April. His teacher has the window shut, as well as the door, but she refuses to touch the heater, much to his and his classmates’s dismay.

He’s a little startled when the scarab’s voice echoes through his head, the fright shooting sharp down his spine and almost making him jump until he manages to stifle the reaction. He thinks he’ll never get used to that, even if the bug stays locked to his spine until the day he dies.

“Receiving transmission,” It says, “From the team. Nightwing speaking.”

Nightwing’s voice is instantaneous after the scarab, quick, desperate in a way that sends ice through Jaime’s veins, “We need anyone who can hear this in Central City. Now. Villain problem-- It’s bad. We're not sure what happened-- The Flash is hurt--”

That’s all, his voice cutting out abruptly as if something happened.

“Interference,” The scarab replies, helpfully, “Unknown.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Jaime announces, to the class, every head turning to him as his voice rises up in a kind of panicked crescendo before he’s out the door. His armour wraps around him the second his foot hits the ground outside, and he’s in the air just as quick. It doesn’t matter. Barry Allen, the Flash, is dead long before Jaime arrives, and long before anyone else arrived, for that matter.

 

 

There is a funeral, and Jaime does not attend. It feels disrespectful-- he wasn’t close with him or anyone in his family, and to intrude on the time the family has to mourn seems cruel. He won’t, and he doesn’t.

 

 

“They’re called the Reach.”

It’s weeks later. The entire team has been gathered at the cave for what Nightwing stressed as an incredibly important, mandatory meeting. Nightwing presses a button on the monitor and the screen comes on, with it a clip from the international news.

A humaniod alien, tinted green, with a bright smile and a clothing choice that can only be described as very alien and official. He waves at the crowd, charismatic. The crowd loves him. Behind him-- a beetle. Just like Jaime, but black. Gigantic. He towers above the alien, looking as if he could step on anyone without even noticing.

Jaime feels all eyes in the room turn to him, and it turns his blood cold.

“People of Earth, I am the Reach Ambassador,” The green alien says, “That is to say, I’m the ambassador of the Reach. The Reach are friendly, and we’re here to extend our friendship to the Earth!”

It’s the cheesiest thing Jaime’s ever heard, enough to make his nose scrunch up in distaste. More than that, it’s sketchy. Off-setting-- He doesn’t trust it, and that beetle...

This ‘ambassador’ is immediately swamped with questions, and a cacophony goes up in the cave. Questions of the team’s own. Skepticism, arguing.

“There’s no way that’s good--”

“Why not? There’s no reason to--”

“Right after the Flash--?”

“Just because--”

Nightwing is quick to silence them. Effectively. Quickly. Jaime can’t stop staring at the Beetle. His scarab is silent.

“Ambassador!” A reporter in the footage says, as if on cue, “Your soldier has a really incredible resemblance to one of Earth’s heroes! Blue Beetle-- do you know anything about that? Comments?”

“Well,” The ambassador says, smiling pleasantly the whole time, in a way that makes Jaime want to be sick for some reason he can’t quite place, “I can say I’ve not heard of this... Blue Beetle. Though I suppose it’s quite possible that somewhere along the line someone on Earth managed to get their hands on Reach technology.”

“Reach technology?” Jaime doesn’t know who said it, but it turns all eyes back on him.

“Blue Beetle,” The ambassador hums, tilting his head to the side ever so slightly, like he’s really thinking, “Well, this, everyone-- this is Dawur. But for the sake of fitting in… How does Black Beetle sound?”

Sounds of approval come up from the crowd in the footage at the same time disapproval arises from the team.

“I don’t trust--”

“Quiet,” Nightwing tells them, “There’s more.”

“Oh--” The ambassador smiles, good naturedly, with a small roll of his eyes, “Silly forgetful me. People of Earth, we have a few more members of our family who we’d like you to meet.”

The first to step out is green, just like him. An alien of the same kind-- it’s very evident. There’s key differences, but more than that there are similarities. She smiles, nods, but she seems to like the spotlight much less than her counterpart. She comes to stand next to the ambassador, who introduces her as a scientist.

It’s directly after her introductions are through with that he steps out.

Curly auburn hair, messy, falling into his eyes. He brushes those unruly curls away to reveal dazzling green eyes, behind gold-tinted goggles. He flashes a bright smile, a downright adorable grin. He has freckles splattering his pale skin. His hair shines in the afternoon sun. He’s thin, small-set, almost girlishly pretty. He looks like an angel.

They’re all thinking it, but it’s Cassie who says it first.

“He’s human.”

He wears a spandex suit. It’s black, but not completely. The gloves and the combat-style boots are a blueish emerald that matches the ambassador, as are the buckles on his wrists. Down his front, the same color, and in black on his chest, the same design that is on the ambassador’s ribs. The same design that’s on Jaime’s suit. That same emerald on his inner thighs.

He’s certainly human.

“This,” The ambassador says, outstretching a hand that the smiling, curly-haired kid takes without hesitation, “Is Impulse.”

Those startlingly green eyes fall on the audience as the boy removes his gold goggles, revealing a cute, freckled, completely unintimidating face. Charismatic. Downright charming. It gave Jaime chills.

Something is very wrong.

Silence. Everyone there is doubtlessly thinking what Cassie had said, and everyone on the team as well. A reporter approaches, and the ambassador turns his attention to her.

“Ambassador-- he’s--”

“Human,” The boy-- Impulse-- finishes for her. His voice sounds like music, carefree and innocent. He’s smiling that adorable smile, stepping closer to the reporter, his hands behind his back in a cute mannerism, “I never knew my family-- my human family, that is. I mean, I’ve obviously gotta have one, if _I’m_ human, but…”

“He was abandoned when he was little,” The scientist fills in. As she crosses over to the boy she puts a comforting arm around his shoulders, regarding the reporter mildly. Those green eyes go out of view to the camera as he smiles at the scientist.

“This is bullshit.” Unsurprisingly, La’gaan.

“Abandoned?” The reporter repeats.

“Yes. Left to die on a distant planet-- Who knows how he got there.”

“Well,” The ambassador chimes in, “being the ones who found him, we thought it our responsibility to take care of him. He’s the main reason we’re so happy to declare friendship and guardianship of Earth-- it is his home planet, after all.”

“I’m very excited to finally see it. It’s _beautiful_ ,” The boy grins at the reporter, like a little kid, “And I’m excited to help protect it, too.”

“But,” The reporter looks confused, her hand twitching, “Aren’t you human, Impulse?”

“Yes, but-- I’m very clever. I’m _fantastic_ with science. And-- oh, I have this neat _trick--_!”

It’s in a flash of black and blueish emerald and gold, an an audible zip that cuts through the air, and in two seconds he returns with a bright grin and an ice-cream cone, “I can go faster than that, too!”

Nightwing pauses the footage, leaving Impulse’s beaming, freckled face on the monitor, the Reach ambassador looking at him like a proud parent.

“He’s a _speedster_.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. They wouldn’t abandon him, and sure as hell not on some distant planet-- how _would_ they?”

“I told you,” It’s Arsenal, this time, “We don’t trust this. The Flash dies and suddenly an alien race shows up declaring _‘friendship’_ with Earth? Speedster in tow? After the sketchy stuff we’re trying to look into? We aren’t buying this, are we?”

“Of course not, Arsenal,” Nightwing confirms. Maybe a little shortly-- he sounds tired, frustrated, at least to Jaime, “But we don’t have proof, and the public is eating them up. We have nothing, and for all we know they really are what they say they are. It _could_ be a coincidence… Just-- Just keep an eye out. Everyone. Hopefully we can sort this out in the end.”

He dismisses the team, but Jaime can’t take his eyes away from that insignia on the speedster’s chest, a deep upset in his bones.

 

 

 

 

It was weeks after they broke Bart Allen that the reprogramming was fully instated, fully functional. Weeks of writing, rewriting. Surgery. Keeping him alive. Hiding his scars, or making stories for the ones they couldn’t and plugging them into his new pseudo memory.

Making sure he didn’t wake up, making sure they weren’t missing anything, that there weren’t any gaps, that they would get this right. Maybe there wouldn’t be any real repercussions if they didn’t, since they could just kill him. But it would be infinitely nicer if it worked.

They hadn’t known what to expect when they finally finished, determined that the boy’s mode was fully instated, optimal. As the scientist observed, borderline flawless. A wonder in and of itself--  truly an exciting time for the Reach. It seemed that they would really pull this off.

Still, though. They couldn’t be quite sure. Not until they put it into action.

They didn’t know what to think, what to expect Impulse came waltzing through those doors to the lab. Click. Slide. The doors opening behind them. Footsteps, the click of the speedster’s combat boots. Unreadable. The two share a glance, then turn to face their experiment.

“Impulse,” The scientist greets. Neutral. Simple. Impulse’s face is unreadable, his lips twitching into a sort of nervous grin as he nods, his hands on his hips as he returns the greeting, a curt, “Scientist.”

“How did you sleep?” The ambassador asks. Carefully. The boy’s green eyes flicker to his, that grin grows a little wider.

“Like a baby,” He replies around a laugh, a hand coming up to tuck a curl behind his ear. So far so good-- fairly normal. The boy is acting as anticipated-- after all, he still has his personality. No sense in changing that, especially if they want Earth’s public to like him.

It’s still not possible to tell.

“I hope so,” The ambassador tells him, “Because you know today is special.”

It’s a small reaction. But it’s there. A little twitch, a little wince, the boy’s hand slowly falling from behind his ear to hang at his side. Green eyes flicker to the wall.

Maybe it didn’t work so well-- it’s what both of them are thinking as they glance at each other. They won’t kill him, not yet. They can always edit him. It would be a shame to put all that work to waste, those weeks of rewriting and coding.

“Yes,” Impulse confirms, a little jerky nod of his head. Both sets of eyes turn back to him, and he squirms under the scrutinization, the green flickering back to them with a kind of discomfort, “Stop analyzing me like that, you know it freaks me out.”

A pause.

“So, you do know what today is…”

He looks at them like they’re crazy. He looks nervous.

“How could I not? It’s only been the most important day of my life since I was three.”

The scientist shoots the ambassador a look, a smug look. It worked.

“Then we have to get you ready, Impulse. We’ve trained you for this moment and this moment only. After today, you are really and truly initiated.”

“You’re Reach,” The scientist tells him, her hand coming forward to card through the boy’s hair.

The mode works in a funny way. It needs reinforcement. It needs consistency. And Impulse’s make-believe reality of his life story consists of him being abandoned as a baby and taken in by the Reach, raised as their own. To one day be a soldier, of course, but they need more loyalty than that.

Impulse thinks he is, essentially, the child of the Reach. Their little soldier boy, but part of their family as well. After all, that’s the number one thing that gets down to the core of humans-- family.

Impulse’s story consists of him being the Reach’s boy. So he’ll be the Reach’s boy.

“You’re of the Reach, Impulse,” The scientist tells him. That grin grows, and she returns the smile, “But your life begins today. You’ll be more than of the Reach-- you’ll be our soldier. Our most trusted. Do you understand?”

“I’ve only heard this speech a million times,” The boy grins, but there’s a kind of lightning in his eyes when he nods, “I understand.”

“Remember, Impulse,” The Ambassador says, and when those green eyes land on him he says, “The Earth has never done you any good.”

“No, it hasn’t.”

“Who has?”

“The Reach. You don’t need to remind me. I’m yours.”

The Ambassador smiles, “Very well. So you know your mission, Impulse?”

“Of course, ambassador,” that lightning-eyed grin, and then, “I’m to kill the Flash.”

 

 

Blood. In the air, all around. Choking. Suffocating. The scent thick.

Impulse is certain he’s seen blood before. Spilled blood-- his own, and that of others. This is different. Why is it different?

It’s more tangible this time. More real. Heavier. He knows why, once he considers it. It’s the Flash. His grandfather. The man who abandoned him, left him to die. Impulse would have died alone, a child, if not for the Reach. The Reach is good to him, good to him in ways his blood never was.

No. His family had only ever done two things right by him. The first was to give him his power. The second was _die_ , blood spilled all over the concrete, all over the man’s blond hair, his face cut up from the fight, his torso cut up from the assassination. He was dead. The Flash was dead.

And now Impulse is the Reach’s most trusted. Standing over the mangled body of his dead grandfather, murdered, by his hands. Impulse. Impulse did this. No help-- his own doing. His initiation. Blood splattering that blueish emerald of his costume. His gold goggles cracked down the middle, scrapes covering his face. Blood. Completely covering his hands.

As he looks down at his hands, that uneasiness settles in him again. He killed someone. His grandfather. His own grandfather.

The Flash.

_It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Was it supposed to be like this? My head._

The click of approaching footsteps behind him. His head. He knows he should look up, should turn and face his mentors, should smile and proudly accept the initiation. Instead his gaze stays locked to his blood-soaked hands, dripping crimson steadily onto the concrete, inches from the feet of his unmoving grandfather. His brows draw together.

_Why is it different? My head._

The click of the footsteps stop. Silence. Hanging heavy in the air. Impulse does not move. A hand on his shoulder. Gentle. Impulse does not look up from his hands, from the blood. God, it’s everywhere.

_Murderer._

A hand, gentle, light, loving, on his jaw, drawing his gaze away from his hands and up to the eyes of the Reach scientist. She’s smiling, lightly, fondly. Proudly. There’s something else in her eyes, though, something that Impulse can’t place. The Ambassador is beside him, then, his hand on Impulse’s shoulder. He can feel similar emotions radiating from his very being, from his touch, from his presence.

Silence.

It’s the Ambassador who says it.

“Good boy.”

The Reach is good to him. His initiation is complete. There's lightning in his eyes when he looks up.

He smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think, what you want to see, request stuff, draw me things, WHATEVER JUST TALK TO ME my tumblr is
> 
> https://crashtacular.tumblr.com/


	3. Elephant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG AND THAT ITS SORTA SHORT BUT HERE

“More on after the break, including a special message to the Earth from the Rea--”

The television is switched off before the reporter can finish her statement. Jaime blinks a few times, not used to the lack of light. It shouldn’t be that dark though-- It couldn’t have been any later than six or so. A time check on his phone confirmed the hour to be eight, verging on nine.

[Jaime Reyes, you’re obsessing] comes the scarab’s helpful, monotone input. Jaime stops a groan in his throat before it comes out, and the bug doesn’t waste any courtesy on his host, [You need to rest. Everything will happen as it happens. Your vessel needs sleep--]

“What do you know about this?”

He hadn’t said it before now, but it was the elephant in the room all along. Jaime had assumed his scarab was technology invented by Ted Kord, but obviously that wasn’t true. They’d called it Reach Technology-- and either they’d been camping out on Earth long enough to get ahold of Kord’s secret work, or Jaime’s scarab came from potential enemy territory.

He wasn’t really sure which explanation was worse.

“Is it true what they said? That you’re theirs?”

Nothing. Silence from the bug, no answers. Frustration rising hot in Jaime’s chest, frustration and sleep deprivation and every bad thing he’d been feeling. The fear of what was happening, of what could happen. The terror that came with not knowing. With knowing the bug was hiding things from him, with wondering why he would need to.

“Khaji Da!”

[Your body is organic, and it requires rest. Go to sleep, Jaime Reyes.]

A click that sounds alien. The scarab goes into a sleep mode, and Jaime is left alone in the dark.

 

 

“Lagoon boy is missing.”

Maybe he expected some gasps, some sort of reactions that would require a pause, because he paused. But nobody speaks, and nobody moves. Nightwing’s eyes scan the team, the silent, unmoving team. The dread hangs in the air as heavy as the silence, and he eventually simply turns and pulls up the files.

“He was last seen last Wednesday--”

“Maybe he’s not missing--” Miss Martian.

“Jesus, it’s been a week. Your boyfriend is missing, and he could be in serious danger. Aren’t you worried?” Arsenal.

“Of course she is, asshole,” Superboy, “she doesn’t want him to be really missing--”

“Yeah? Look at her, she looks beside herself, doesn’t she?” Venomous. Arsenal.

“Enough,” Aqualad, authoritative, under thinly veiled distress. The cacophony ends as suddenly as it began. All argument stops instantly, and all eyes snap to Kaldur. Jaime’s a little caught up in his silent thinking that his teammates are being rough on Miss Martian, and that maybe that’s a constant. She’s nice enough, and she was only trying to make suggestions. 

Who’s to say he really is missing? And it would be better if he wasn’t.

Optimism, that’s all.

[Make no mistake, Jaime Reyes] The scarab’s voice comes clear in his mind, interrupting as always, [The Lagoon boy is definitely missing.]

“Oh yeah? And how would you know that?” A silent, mental response.

No response from the tech, not that one was expected.

Kaldur’s eyes sweep over the team, serious, grave. He speaks with an authority in his voice, a kind of fire.

“We accomplish nothing bickering like children,” He says, level, “La’gaan is missing. We do not know what could have happened, and we have no leads. The team assigned to this: Robin leading Wondergirl, Blue Beetle, and Bumblebee.”

Silence hangs in the air again, and is followed by a quiet dismissal. Jaime’s eyes catch on Robin, who is making his way to the center, as are the rest of the team. Jaime follows suit. The silence lasts for a few seconds, before Robin speaks.

“First the Flash,” He says, “Then the Reach announce themselves. And now a teammate is missing.”

“You think this has something to do with the Reach?” Jaime clarifies.

“I think that’s why you’re here, Blue.”

Another silence, and Karen winces. Jaime’s eyes flicker to her before they catch on Robin.

“Why I’m here? What does that mean?”

“It means you’re our only connection,” Robin tells him, that serious, stern look on his face the one every bat kid had a version of, “Even if we don’t know what it means. It’s all we’ve got. And if we think this is Reach--”

“You think I’m Reach?”

“Nobody’s saying that, honey,” Karen amends, quickly, swooping in with sweetness like sugar, gentle, her hand on Jaime’s shoulder, “And nobody’s saying you know anything, or implying that you’re anything you aren’t. You and that scarab are just… the closest we’ve got.”

He looks at her and he looks right back down. She’s right, they’re all right. But it’s not easy to shake the idea that they’re wary of him now, that a distrust for him has been planted in his teammates.

[Change the subject if you are uncomfortable with the current one.]

“Why isn’t Miss Martian here?” Jaime asks, turning his gaze back up to his teammates. Looks are exchanged, and none of them look comfortable. It confuses Jaime even more, and as his gaze flickers from teammate to teammate he continues, “...We’re trying to find her boyfriend, why wouldn’t she want to come?”

“M’gaan and La’gaan aren’t…” Karen starts, and then hesitates before looking down altogether. After a little sigh, Robin picks it back up.

“M’gaan and La’aan aren’t exactly the perfect couple, Blue.”

“Perfect? They’re not even good,” Cassie huffs, only glancing at Jaime before continuing with her gaze turned to the floor, “We’ve all seen it. He’s so centered on her, and the problem is that so is she.”

To call Jaime surprised would be an understatement.

“You don’t think she cares about him?” He reiterates.

“It’s not a theory. She just doesn’t.”

 

 

It was all it took. Just a little push, a little seal and the whole mode becomes airtight. The faux memories as good as real ones, the real ones nothing but lost to the wind. A soldier boy, perfectly moded and completely of the Reach.

“Impulse?”

Stepping into the human’s room, planning to retrieve him for a gathering with the others. The boy looks up, his pale face smeared with grease. Clad in civilian clothes instead of his suit, holding something in his hands. The scientist falters in the doorway, a sort of confusion falling over her. The boy smiles.

“Scientist.”

“Impulse. What is that?”

“This?” He looks down at the contraption before coming down off the bed and crossing the room to hand it to her. It’s small, a little metal ball. When Impulse realizes she still doesn’t know what it is, he explains.

“It’s just something I made. It has a camera on it, and the controller has a fifty mile radius. It rolls, but I’m trying to make it fly.”

“Made?” She repeats, looking up at him. He grins, maybe sheepishly, offering a small shrug. It takes her by surprise that the boy is an inventor, but now that she considers it… it shouldn’t. The boy grew up a metahuman in the Reach colony of the future, a slave. He built a time machine from nothing but the scraps-- he invented time machine all on his own. It was remarkable, and it was a fact that should not have been overlooked before.

“...Scientist?”

“It’s remarkable, Impulse,” She tells him, her fingers carding through his hair in an affectionate gesture before she sets the machine aside, “I’d like to talk to you about your inventing later, but for now there’s a gathering.”

“A gathering?” He repeats, a small tilt of his head communicating his confusion, “For what?”

“Your next assignment-- a team effort this time?”

“What is it?”

“We’re going to bring Blue Beetle home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think, what you want to see, request stuff, draw me things, WHATEVER JUST TALK TO ME my tumblr is
> 
> https://crashtacular.tumblr.com/

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think, what you want to see, request stuff, draw me things, WHATEVER JUST TALK TO ME my tumblr is
> 
> https://crashtacular.tumblr.com/


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